The Dream Made Real
by Tairako
Summary: His father touched Sin and became real that night, foundering in the seas of Spira. But what really happened to Jecht, just before he crossed over? [Oneshot, completed. Rated for Jecht language.]


  
DISCLAIMER: This isn't mine, it never was mine, and it never will be mine. I have the game and a really cool Lulu wallscroll that stares at me as I write because it's hung over my computer, and a few images saved to my harddrive. That's it, finito, done. If it was mine I'd be getting Auron to give me private sword lessons.   
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is a short one-shot fic (yep, for me this is short) inspired by some theories I read on the greatest Jecht shrine ever: www . remiem . net / jecht / (copy, paste, and take out the spaces - it's so worth it, trust me, the girl has done great work) run by the inestimable Regann. I found her shrine to Jecht and fell in love with it initially because of the layout, but then because of the amount of work she'd done. There is crazy-mad information on that site, and I'm a complete geek so it fascinates me. She developed this whole theory about Jecht's origin that makes so much sense to me, and this fic is the result of me just wanting to put it down in a story form. I doubt she'll ever see this, but if she does: Regann, this is for you.   
It's not my usual style of writing; it's much more dreamlike than I usually do, but it worked better for the story. I don't know how often I'll be writing in this style, but I like the way it turned out this time.   
And now, onward!   
  


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Training.   
Always training. Training for speed, training for economy of movement, training his techniques to always be in top form. For the star, training was life.   
No, that was wrong. _Playing_ was life; the rush of the water, the roars of the crowd, the fans swarming him before he could even get off his dock. Executing a perfect shot, zipping it past the goalie with just enough energy to score, then listening to the crowd go wild and knowing it was all for him. _That_ was life. Training was a way to make life possible. But he loved it just the same.   
Except when _those_ thoughts invaded his mind.   
_Washed up, huh? Retiring? Damnit, I'm not even thirty-five._ Jecht swam easily through the water, powerful arms cutting through the waves like knives, blitzball floating behind him in a special carrying net that was tied to his ankle and leaving his hands free. _I'm just gettin' started!_   
As much as he hated to admit it – and he wouldn't, about himself – his critics had a point in the general sense of the word. Blitzball was a sport of explosive stars, early rises to glory, and just as sudden crashes. The average age of most of the teams was between twenty and twenty-three, while the highest was only twenty-seven.   
His team.   
The Abes' lineup was aging, there was no doubt about that, and Jecht was the eldest of them all at thirty-four. But he still played as well as, or better, than his younger teammates, most of whom had been raised on fifteen years of his legends, in a sport where retirement was taken around thirty for the most part.   
And that was doing pretty damn good.   
_I'll show 'em_, he mentally growled to himself, the chill of the water clearing his head of the leftover alcohol fumes of the night before. He plunged beneath the water, holding his breath expertly, and dove straight for the bottom, fighting the water pressure to vent his frustration. The ball on his ankle fought the sinking, one of the reasons he put it there, making the descent even more of a challenge than it would be normally. The pressure pounded on his head and body, hammering at his brain, until finally he reversed and shot for the surface, unable to take the strain on his eardrums anymore. But when he reached air again, he was calmer, more focused; his excess angry energy had been dissipated by that plunge, and he could concentrate on his training.   
After all, training was useless if you couldn't _remember_ it.   
With a few more minutes of swimming, Jecht had reached his usual spot: a small outcropping of rocks just barely sticking out of the water that he could use to rebound the ball. The city was out of view entirely; his level of near-paranoia about someone trying to steal his techniques led him to train in places that no other human would come without a boat. But it was part of how he stayed at the top of the game; he'd develop new techniques that no one thought possible, and he'd keep the secrets for himself. He had hopes – one day – of teaching that scrawny boy of his the tricks; he'd never say it, but that boy had the potential to really follow in his footsteps. But the kid was only a kid, and there was no way in hell he could do it now. Maybe in ten years. Maybe.   
Jecht untied the net from his ankle and freed the ball; draping the net over the top of one of the rocks, he dove underwater quickly, carrying the ball with him as he began to run through the familiar maneuvers of a defensive pattern. The swim out to his spot was always a good warm-up, but he'd learned from the time he'd begun training to work up to the difficult things, no matter how ready you felt. He followed that advice even now, twenty-five years later, and beat it into new teammates. They cursed him, called him insane, and maniac, and many other names, but eventually they came over to his side as they realized that what he was doing _worked_.   
Or usually worked, anyway.   
All of his work, all of his focus should've meant he could keep his mind on his training, but today it was just impossible. He'd heard the rumors before; it seemed someone or other always had a new theory about how he was going to pull out soon. But washed up? Losing his edge? _Damn them all to hell an' back, they've got no idea what I'm doing_. But to hear it from his own kid… Somehow that just went beyond everything else to make it infinitely more infuriating, infecting his brain and refusing to leave. It seemed as if every single derogatory comment he'd ever heard was coming back to throw themselves in his face, an onslaught of words that he couldn't escape even underwater. It had been a long, long time before this since he'd had major detractors – but now he was remembering everything they'd ever said, try as he could to avoid it.   
_He's too damn big, he'd be too slow.   
Got an ego, that one; watch out, or he's liable to come after you.   
Jecht likes his alcohol; just stay out of his way at the bars and you'll be okay.   
How are we gonna cover up something this big? He broke that guy's jaw!   
I hate you, Dad._   
Jecht growled deep in his throat as he threw the blitzball at the rock without any form or style, as hard as he could, and the ball flew away in the direction of the morning sun. It was useless today; there was no way he could focus, and without focus the only things he could do were frustrate or hurt himself. He slowly began swimming after the ball, trying hard to calm down but still growling under his breath, and his task was just made more frustrating by the ball itself, bobbing further and further away in the water, as if it wanted to go back to Zanarkand on its own.   
"Damn stupid friggin'…" he muttered to himself as he pulled through the water.   
"That's not the way."   
Jecht spun in complete shock, water spraying in a great arc; there wasn't anyone else there. There shouldn't be anyone else there. There wasn't. Was he actually cracking, hearing voices?   
"That's not the way you want to go."   
The voice came from his right this time and he spun in that direction, looking once again for a source for the voice. Still there was no one there.   
This was just _it_; he was tired, hung over, frustrated, and angry, and the _last_ thing he needed was hallucinations. "Wherever the hell you are, get out here!" he yelled as he punched the water with his right fist, looking all around for the source.   
The answer he got wasn't at all the one that he expected. Directly in front of him, a shape began to slowly form, almost as if it was pulling little pieces of itself out of the air. It gradually evolved into a human form, but always remained slightly nebulous, as if it wasn't quite finished. Jecht soon found himself looking at a young man, perhaps twenty or so, dressed in oddly coarse clothing in shades of blue and dull yellow, wearing a strange cap that nearly covered his eyes and what looked to be primitive armor. His skin was slightly darker than Jecht's, but his eyes… His eyes were a strange amber brown, rimmed with orange that seemed to glow like they were on fire. Little spheres of light seemed to slowly swim in the air around him, occasionally bumping against him as if they were a favorite pet. And, as if the effect wasn't strange enough, the young man stood on the water just as if it were solid ground.   
Jecht was too stunned to even try to move, though his mind was screaming at him to _get away from there!_ The young man didn't get any closer, but simply stood waiting for Jecht to find his words.   
It took quite a long time. "How- What-"   
"The city of dreams isn't where you need to be right now." His voice, too, was odd, almost hollow, and it echoed back at him multiple times. "We need you elsewhere."   
"Who's _we?_" he demanded, finally back in his right mind – and still very angry. "What the hell _are_ you!"   
The figure turned away, looking up at the sun in the clear sky. "We… is us."   
"That tells me shit!"   
"It's not supposed to tell you anything."   
"What in the hell are you _saying?_"   
The young man glanced back over his shoulder. "Look down." And then, without warning, he vanished.   
"WAIT A GODDAMN MINUTE! I WANT SOME ANSWERS!" he roared, looking every which way to find some sign of the young man, but there was nothing. He couldn't even see his blitzball anymore. Jecht slammed the water with his fist once more, still growling – and abruptly realized what "look down" had meant.   
The sea below him was growing darker, but not the darkness of missing light – the darkness of shadow, of something being there that wasn't before. Something very… very large. The water began to surge more around him as the thing came closer at a speed he couldn't judge, and it was bigger still, and the fish in the area were scattering as fast as they could, and that thing was huge, as big as the stadium, as big as Zanarkand-   
When he awoke later, surrounded by fishermen and washed up on the shores of a sprawling city he'd never seen, he'd already convinced himself that the boy had been a dream.   
  


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AUTHOR'S NOTES II: Yep, that's the end - I don't intent to make this a Braska-pilgrimage fic; I don't want to, I've got a lot of stuff going already, and frankly I don't have any ideas for one. I was just fascinated by the idea of _how_ Jecht got to Zanarkand in the first place, since Tidus is sinspawn and- well, you know what? If you really wanna know my take on most of that stuff, including my ideas on dream-Zanarkand, the fayth, and how they and Sin interact, head over to my livejournal at LJ username Tairako (it's also linked through my bio page). What with ff.n cracking down on author's notes and review replies recently, I've just started tossing everything up there, and it works pretty well. There'll also be some explanation as to just who that young man was, and a couple of mini-theories of mine about him.   
Let me know what you thought! See ya! 


End file.
